Did They Fast During the Period of the Second Beit HaMikdash?

In his Commentary on the Mishnah, Rambam establishes that during the era of the Second Beit HaMikdash, people fasted on Tisha B’Av:

“During the period of the Second Beit HaMikdash, they did not fast on the Tenth of Tevet or the Seventeenth of Tammuz. Rather, whoever wished to fast could fast, and whoever did not wish to fast was not obligated. Therefore, they did not send out [messengers] for Tevet and Tammuz. G-d said: ‘Thus says Hashem: the fast of the fourth, the fast of the fifth, the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth’ – as if He placed the choice in their hands regarding these days, whether they wished to fast or not. The fast of the fourth is the Seventeenth of Tammuz, since Tammuz is the fourth month; the fast of the fifth is Tisha B’Av, which falls in the fifth month; the fast of the seventh is the Fast of Gedaliah; and the fast of the tenth is the Tenth of Tevet, as it falls in the tenth month. They did fast on Tisha B’Av even though it was left to their discretion, because multiple tragedies were multiplied upon it” (Rosh Hashanah 1:3).

At first glance, Rambam’s position is puzzling. Why would they fast while the Beit HaMikdash was standing?

The simple explanation is that the Second Beit HaMikdash was incomplete. Central elements were absent from the Second Beit HaMikdash: there was no Ark, and perhaps no resting of the Divine Presence. Therefore, they still fasted over the loss of the first Beit HaMikdash, because the essential core was missing. 

The Sfat Emet holds that sometimes they fasted and sometimes they did not. When there was peace, they did not fast, not even on Tisha B’Av. When conditions were difficult and they were subject to foreign domination, they fasted.

However, the plain reading of the Rambam suggests they always fasted. In any event, it is noteworthy that the Talmud indicates that the determining factor for fasting or canceling a fast is not the existence of the Beit HaMikdash, but rather the political reality: whether there is peace or there is not. The fast is not only about the past. It concerns what is happening in the present, and serves as a reminder for the future as well.

First, it relates to present reality – which is why it depends on whether there is peace or war in our own time. When there is hardship and no peace, everything joins together as a continuation of the destruction of the Temple. This is why the kinot include the massacres of 1096, the burning of the Talmud, the Holocaust, and similar tragedies.

Second, the fast serves as a reminder that even in good times, even when the Temple stands, one must still maintain proper conduct. Things can always, G-d forbid, change.

There may be yet another dimension. Sometimes a person’s circumstances are so good that he fails to appreciate just how good they are. Perhaps there is meaning in fasting even when the Temple stands – to remember the absence and recall that reality in which we lacked all that goodness. Sometimes light is only perceived against the backdrop of darkness. Only by contemplating the destruction can one truly grasp the exalted and wondrous reality of the Divine Presence.

Perhaps this is the special significance of the elegy “Eish Tukad b’Kirbi, A Fire Burns Within Me,” which describes the wonders we possessed during the Temple’s existence and the things we now lack – similar to the passage we recite immediately following the Kohen Gadol’s service on Yom Kippur.

Today, tragically, the Temple is destroyed. Yet there is much we have merited. We have merited returning to the Land and returning home after two thousand years. We have merited the restoration of part of Jerusalem, the establishment of a state, and the flourishing of Torah. Yet so much is still missing – spiritually, in terms of sovereignty over the Land, and above all in terms of the resting of the shechina and the felt presence of G-d’s sovereignty among us.

On Tisha B’Av we weep over all that is lacking – over the destruction of the Temple, over the departure of the shechina. Within that weeping we also remember additional sorrows that are a continuation of the destruction, such as the devastation of Gush Katif and the uprooting of its residents and the slaughter of October 7th. Yet we also remember all that we have, thank G-d, been granted – and in this the weeping takes on an additional dimension: Are we truly conducting ourselves in a manner worthy of all we have received? And furthermore: if we have merited so much, if we have merited the beginning of the redemption, then we possess the capacity to reach even greater heights. We have the capacity to demand more of ourselves – and the higher we are privileged to stand, the freer we are, the more we are obligated to care for those who struggle and to help them to reach the great dream of their own lives.

Rabbi Yosef Zvi Rimon is the Nasi of World Mizrachi. He is the Founder and Chairman of Sulamot and La’Ofek, and serves as the Chief Rabbi of Gush Etzion, and Rosh Yeshivah of the Jerusalem College of Technology.